Dr. David Anvir, the professor of Hebrew University of Israel and the CAS’s 2019 Distinguished Scientist under President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI), paid a visti to the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) on April 16, 2019. Prof. ZHANG Long, the deputy director of SIOM, presided over the seminar. After the appointment ceremony and the signature of bilateral cooperation agreement came Prof. David Anvir’s exciting report entitled "sol-gel optics and photophysics". His report centered on the advantages of sol agglomeration in material preparation and mainly discussed the preparation and photoelectric properties of organic molecules and metal complexes, organic molecules and glass structures. Following his detailed introduction of the preparation of sol-condensing film through electrochemical method, optical conductive flexible sol-gel film, sol-gel photochemical inductor, sol-gel optical switch material and sol-gel for solar energy storage, participating researchers had an in-depth discussion with Prof. David Anvir. Prof. David Anvir was an AAAS Fellow since 1996, Member of Academia Europaea since 2009, and an ISGS Fellow since 2018. He led the creation of the International Sol-gel Society and served as its first President. He has published over 300 papers in Nature, Science, Nature Chemistry, j. Am. Chem. Soc., Adv. Mater., Angew and so on. His articles were cited more than 32,000 times with an h-index of 79.